


A Night to Remember

by devilinthedetails



Category: PIERCE Tamora - Works, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Cross-Cultural Marriage, Cultural Differences, F/M, First Time, Love, Multiracial Relationship, Romance, Wedding Night
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-06
Updated: 2018-03-06
Packaged: 2019-03-27 23:12:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13891146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilinthedetails/pseuds/devilinthedetails
Summary: Kaddar is determined to make his wedding night one to remember.





	A Night to Remember

A Night to Remember

Kaddar’s arms were strong as they bore Kalasin into their bedchamber according to Carthaki custom. She didn’t have to worry about him dropping her onto the marble floor, which left her free to fret about everything else that was promised to occur that night. If she weren’t determined to do her duty, she might have kicked at him until he put her down since there was nothing so undignified as being carried when she had two working legs of her own. 

“I can walk.” Her protest was muffled by the curve of his heck, but he must have heard it because he shook his head as if to dislodge an irksome insect. 

“Not on our wedding night.” There was mingled frustration and amusement in his tone. At another time, Kalasin would’ve grinned impishly or scowled intimidatingly depending on her mood, but tonight she felt too numb for either expression. “That would be bad luck.” 

He deposited her gently into the goosefeathers of their mattress, but she stared at his hands warily, waiting for him to roughly rip off her wedding dress. He didn’t do that. When he did move his hands, it was to clutch hers, not in domination, she thought, but reassurance. “I’m not a savage, Kalasin.” 

Maybe she should’ve known he wasn’t from the letters and gifts he had sent from Carthak to Tortall throughout their engagement, or if not from them, then from the stories Daine had told about his hidden humor and fascination with plants and animals, tales that along with the fact that Carthak needed to be turned into an ally were the only reason Kalasin had agreed to this marriage. Alone with him for the first time, it struck her that she didn’t know enough to fill a thimble about the true nature of her husband. If he was a brute like his uncle behind closed doors, she would discover that now, and that realization made her shiver. 

“You don’t have to be afraid of me.” Kaddar’s thumbs circled hers, and she would have insisted that she wasn’t afraid of him if that wasn’t a lie. She wouldn’t begin her marriage with a lie to her husband. “I don’t want to hurt you.” 

Kalasin had heard that the first time hurt for a woman even if the man didn’t want it to but saying that would only make this awkward moment worse for both of them. 

“I want tonight to be one to remember for both of us.” He gave her fingers a final squeeze before releasing them. Spinning around, he grabbed a cypress tray laden with golden bowls of fruit and molten chocolate dark as his skin for dipping. The tray, she decided as Kaddar reclined it against a satin pillow on her opposite side, must have been hidden behind his back since this was her first glimpse of it. 

He climbed into the bed—not exactly beside her because the tray was between them—and she could feel the mattress shift beneath her as it accommodated his body, which she had never been more aware of than she was now. 

“Have a nibble.” Kaddar swirled a date in the chocolate and extended it to Kalasin. 

Kalasin hesitated. At their wedding feast, she and Kaddar had fed each other the first bite of food from their plates at the start of every course as Carthaki tradition required. She had understood what the rite signified: her giving to him and him providing for her at the outset of their shared life together. Then they had been in a banquet hall and serving one another with utensils. Now they were in a bed and Kaddar was offering her fruit from his own hand. It felt more intimate, and probably because it was. 

“I know you like dates.” Kaddar tickled her lips with the fruit so she could taste the warm sweetness of the chocolate. “Take a bite. I haven’t poisoned it.” 

The chocolate was tempting enough that she ate the fruit. The date dipped in chocolate was so delicious that she figured she must return the favor. With trembling fingers she coated a berry with chocolate. She was shaking so much that she feared she would dribble melted chocolate over the silk blankets beneath them as she lifted the berry to Kaddar’s mouth. He smiled and swallowed in a pound of Kalasin’s racing heart. 

Slowly she stopped hesitating when he served her, and eventually she no longer shook like a palm frond in a thunderstorm when she presented him a fruit. When he sensed that she was more at ease with him, he began to feed her with his lips instead of his fingers. At first his mouth didn’t linger over hers but after awhile it did, coaxing her into kisses that progressed from tender into the fervid.

“I love melons.” His palms glided beneath her bodice as she leaned toward him to offer him a slice of melon from between her teeth. 

“You wouldn’t like them if they were yours,” muttered Kalasin as he removed the fruit from her mouth with a swipe of his tongue. Her cheeks burned from the memory of how she had hated her breasts once they had begun to bounce whenever she rode her horse and of how fiercely she had yearned to cut them off when she had noticed they had swelled even larger than her mother’s. 

“Nonsense.” He unbuttoned the back of her dress and guided the front down so her entire chest was bared to his gaze. Cupping her breasts, he murmured, breath sweet as chocolate, into the shell of Kalasin’s ear, “They’re the right mixture of soft and firm.”

Kalasin wished she could devise a witty rejoinder but his hands had squeezed her breasts so suddenly that she could only gasp as he went on with a trace of smugness, “I love to squeeze melons to check that they are truly ripe.” 

“Are mine?” To Kalasin, they had felt heavy and overripe since they had started to grow when she was eleven. 

“Of course.” He stroked around her nipples until her skin tingled. Then he rubbed her nipples into a sensitive hardness. “I can feel that with my fingers. The real question is how ripe is your cherry.” 

She knew where his fingers would descend next but she made no move to stop them as they snaked down to hoist her skirt above her waist and spread her thighs. His fingers disappeared into the folds between her legs, stirring up sensations she had never felt before. Only when she was damp did he whisper into her hair that her cherry was ripe for picking. 

When he entered her, she bit her tongue to hold in a cry of pain. He remained motionless inside her, waiting for the hurt to subside. Then he began to rock inside her, slowly at first and then more rapidly, and the ache was released in moans and spasms of desire. 

After he had planted his seed inside her, Kalasin rested her cheek against his chest, remarking, “You did make this a night to remember.” 

“I wanted to do that.” Kaddar streamed kisses along her forehead like a crown. “Sometimes I get to do what I want. One of the perks of being an emperor.”


End file.
